December 2, 2018December 3, 2018 Carolynn

Olympic National Park, part 1

This weekend we ventured across the Puget Sound to check out Olympic National Park. The park covers a lot of ground and with limited daylight, we allowed ourselves 2 days to sightsee. Saturday, we got up at the crack of dawn to head to the ferry terminal to start our trip. We got on the first ferry so that we didn’t waste any daylight. Our first stop was the Hoh Rainforest.

Hoh Rainforest

It was extremely wet but it wasn’t actively raining while we were there. We chose one of the medium length trails to hike. Before we started the hike we checked out the visitors center. They had a notice inside that elk had recently charged visitors. I didn’t want to get charged, but I really wanted to see some elk. That didn’t happen.

Everything was super green and covered in moss. Some of the trees had some pretty fascinating root structures. A lot of them were really big and super smooth.

Our next stop was Rialto Beach.

Rialto Beach

This was a beautiful beach. There were lots of sea stacks and driftwood. The beach was made of rock instead of sand. The size of the rocks got smaller the closer to the water you got.

After leaving the beach, we were headed to Cape Flattery, the northwestern-most point in the contiguous US. On the way, we got to drive along the Strait of Juan de Fuca which is a divider between the US and Canada. There were lots of scenic viewpoints but the one we stopped at was called shipwreck point. The land across the water is Canada.

We also spotted a waterfall on the way. There was no signage or anything for it, so not sure if it had a name.

Cape Flattery

The hike out to the point was about 1.5 miles round trip. There were 3 overlooks in total. Each one of them offered a different but equally awesome view.